topic Re: Creating a live viewpoint for stories in GDL

Creating a live viewpoint for stories

lahulme — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 11:16:32 GMT

Is there a way to set up a live key in the paper space that shows the story settings i.e. so that there is always a clear and update viewpoint that show the stories used.

I know you can have the stories visible in section and then bring these through to the paper space, however what I am trying to do is create a live viewpoint that can be used on any drawing and bring it in a bit like a door/window schedule

Thanks in advance

Betreff: Creating a live viewpoint for stories

runxel — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 19:15:54 GMT

Hi @lahulme and welcome to the Forum.

With "paper space" you mean layouts, I guess?

Honestly I don't fully understand your question – maybe you can show us a picture of what you are trying to do here?

Re: Creating a live viewpoint for stories

Lingwisyer — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 01:35:13 GMT

As in a table of your storey names and heights?

Re: Creating a live viewpoint for stories

lahulme — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 09:29:30 GMT

Essentially I want to add the stories table as below and yes add it to the layout sheet

as a live viewport/table. I hope that makes more sense.

Re: Creating a live viewpoint for stories

runxel — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 09:47:50 GMT

Ah well, interesting demand I've not seen before. There is nothing out of the box that I'm aware of.

The data is easy to get with the STORY_Info request (p. 501 of the reference manual).

I'm not sure if that one works when you place it directly on the layout tho. Might need a worksheet.

There is no native "make a table" command in GDL, but you can have a look into e.g. some labels, or the transmittal overview object. In there is a macro call, which builds a table from custom input. It's not easy to wrap your head around tho, I must say.

Re: Creating a live viewpoint for stories

Patrick M — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 20:12:25 GMT

you can create a schedule with the criteria:
element type is slab
height to home story is 0

then the schedule fields would be
home story
elevation (above project 0)
...
where I'm falling short is the height to next column. I'm assuming you could do something with expressions to fill in that blank, but expressions are never my strong suit. If Jan catches wind of this comment, maybe he can fill in for my deficiency here?

Re: Creating a live viewpoint for stories

Patrick M — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 20:23:19 GMT

Here's that in a quick tip vid...
one thing I forgot to mention was, you may want to check the merge items box in the schedule style settings (screen shot and vid link attached, video may still be processing on youtube when posting this):
https://youtu.be/2mUbLEuOj8s

Re: Creating a live viewpoint for stories

AllanP — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 03:41:21 GMT

the gdl code that runxel refers to does work in objects on the layout.

if you put the following code into the master script or 2D script of a new blank object, you will get the table(without the level marker checkbox)

! n = REQUEST ("Story_info", expr, nStories,

! index1, name1, elev1, height1 [,

! index2, name2, ...])

! STR (format_string, numeric_expression)

! format_string: "%[0 or more flags][field_width][.precision] conv_spec"

! flags: (for m, mm, cm, dm, e, df, di, sqm, sqcm, sqf, sqi, dd, gr, rad, **beep**, l, cucm, cumm, cuf, cui, cuy, gal):

DEFINE STYLE "myFontStyle" "Arial", 2.5, 1, 0 SET STYLE "myFontStyle" DIM Storey_Table_Array[] N_of_Fields_returned = REQUEST ("STORY_INFO", "", Number_OF_STORIES, Storey_Table_Array) TextLineH = 0.010 textSpacing1 = 0.010 textSpacing2 = 0.050 textSpacing3 = 0.070 for loop_number = 1 to Number_OF_STORIES text2 0.00, 0.00, Storey_Table_Array[loop_number*4-3 ] ! index text2 textSpacing1 , 0.00,Storey_Table_Array[loop_number*4-2] ! name text2 textSpacing2, 0.00,STR ("%mm",Storey_Table_Array[loop_number*4-1]) ! elev text2 textSpacing3, 0.00,STR ("%mm",Storey_Table_Array[loop_number*4]) ! height hotspot2 0.000, 0.000 hotspot2 0.090, 0.000 add2 0,TextLineH next loop_number